


Bright Young Thing

by Ylixia



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: (not main pairing), Abuse of Authority, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Age Difference, Circle of Magi, Dubious Power Dynamics, M/M, Mage Origin, Rite of Tranquility, Size Difference, mage templar relations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 18:16:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12776664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ylixia/pseuds/Ylixia
Summary: As the shadow of Ostagar looms dark on the horizon, Duncan returns once more to Kinloch Hold.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday to me! The draft of this was actually completed during Camp Nano July 2017, and since my current nano is going incredibly poorly, I wanted to post something complete and give myself a small victory for my birthday! :)
> 
> So this... This was meant as a porny one-shot that ran wildly, _wildly_ out of control. Kyrien is a throwaway character I made when I wanted to play DA:O but wanted to save the next playthrough of my canon warden for when I write fic of her. That plan backfired horribly the moment Kyrien laid eyes on Duncan and wanted to climb him like a tree, and then I started writing him and he developed a backstory and _feelings_ and ugh. I'm a disaster.
> 
> I don't think the underage tag is representative of this story, but Kyrien is a teenager and that informs his relationship with Duncan, so if that makes you uncomfortable do feel free to duck out. There's also a fairly fucked-up dubcon encounter with a templar with some heavy implications, though that gets diffused rather quickly on-screen, as it were. Basically this fic turned into an exploration into all the ways the Circles are fucked up, with some porn in the middle, so curate your reading experience accordingly and please do drop me a line if you need some further warning.
> 
> Some of the dialogue below is reproduced and edited directly from the original in-game quest in whatever manner I saw fit.
> 
> Enjoy! :)

“We rely heavily on the Crown’s support to keep this tower running. If the King has need, it is our duty to aid him.”

“His Majesty would sooner tear down his palace around his ears than cut off the Circle. He knows very well he relies on us to keep his people safe, safety we would jeopardize by letting more mages go haring off into the countryside.”

“They are not ‘haring off’, Greagoir, they’re going to _war —_ ”

“Yes, and we’ve committed _enough_ of our own to this war effort —”  


Duncan resists the urge to rub his temples. First Enchanter Irving and Knight-Commander Greagoir have descended into shouting matches three or four times since this morning, and they show every sign of warming up for another. For a brief moment he fantasizes vividly about knocking their heads together, summoning a more sensible mage to address his request, and having done done with the politicking and diplomacy altogether. Sadly, the reality would be more trouble than the reward; they really do need the Circle mages on their side if they are to succeed, and diplomacy would not be helped by assaulting Circle leadership. Tempting as that leadership makes it.

“ _Your_ own?” Irving snorts. Greagoir glares at him, and the both of them are too caught up in their latest verbal duel to notice an undersized figure approaching the doorway. “Since when have you felt such kinship with the mages, Greagoir? Or is it simply that you dislike letting them out from chantry supervision, where they can actually use their Maker-bestowed powers?”

“Gentlemen, please.” Duncan says, the edge in his tone a tad sharper than he’d like; he’s been unsuccessfully been trying to get a few words in edgewise all morning. “Irving, there is someone here to see you.”

The newcomer smirks slightly when all the attention in the room shifts to him. He’s young, his eyes the same color as his inky, blue-black hair, and he looks exhausted. His face is drained and pale, though the form under his robes carries the light roundness of a well-fed scholar. He is also, Duncan notes, an elf, though the bold black slashes of the tattoos on his face are clearly not of Dalish origin.

“Hello,” he says. His eyes flick curiously over Duncan.

“Ah, if it isn’t our new brother in the Circle,” Irving announces, his narrow eyes growing kindly and soft. “Come here, child, come here.”

Irving had mentioned earlier that he had a likely candidate to introduce to him. “And this is…?”

Irving nods, and Duncan hums thoughtfully. Kyrien Surana. A “good lad, if a little troubled”. Someone who “could benefit greatly from a little worldly experience" and who "with a little guidance, would no doubt be a great asset to the King’s Army.” In other words, an expendable troublemaker Irving is eager to wash his hands of. Green as grass, with no combat experience, few would expect him to return from the field of chaos and carnage Ostagar is promising itself to be. Presumably he would have already been with the first round of Circle recruits, had he completed his apprenticeship.

“Well Irving, you are obviously busy,” Greagoir sneers, breaking through Duncan’s thoughts. “We’ll discuss this later.” He strides out of the room, shooting Duncan a dark look as he leaves. They haven’t gotten along, in their brief acquaintance. Duncan is determined to bring more mages to Ostagar, and Greagoir is equally as determined to keep as many safely in the tower as possible. The nearness of the battle, the urgency of his dreams, has made Duncan somewhat shorter with the man than might have been under different circumstances, but he can’t help but find the Knight-Commander dangerously shortsighted.

Surana stumbles to the side as Greagoir brushes past him without a glance. He sways a little before he regains his balance, and Duncan notices again how exhausted he looks; there are shadows under his eyes and his hands are trembling faintly, but his dark eyes are still sharp as he glares at Greagoir’s retreating back.

“What’s he doing here?” he demands when he swings back to face Irving, jerking his chin at Duncan.

“You’ve heard about the war brewing to the south, I expect?” Irving asks. Surana nods slowly. “Duncan is recruiting mages to join the king’s army at Ostagar.”

His eyes widen and the look he gives Irving is almost hopeful. “Who are we fighting?” he demands.

“The darkspawn threat that grows in the south,” Duncan answers, drawing Surana’s attention back to him. “We need all the help we can get.”

Surana frowns. “Darkspawn are a dwarven problem.”

Maker. Sentiments like that do not get less frustrating to hear, even with exhaustive repetition. “They have formed into a hoard in the Korcari Wilds and threaten to invade the north into the valley,” Duncan says, keeping his tone even with some effort. “If we don’t drive them away, we may see another blight.” They are unquestionably seeing another blight, of course, but he’s learned to hedge his language lest he get into another pointless argument

“Duncan, you worry the poor lad with talk of blights and darkspawn.” Irving chastises, rather proving Duncan’s point. “This is a happy day for him.”

“I can barely contain myself for joy,” Surana says.

Duncan ignores him and turns to Irving, biting back his first, and then second retort. “We live in troubled times, my friend.”

“And we should seize moments of levity, especially in troubled times,” Irving counters. He casts a glowing look on Surana, who meets it with an expression that could have been carved from stone. “The Harrowing is behind you. Your phylactery was sent to Denerim —”

“My leash, you mean.” Surana says in a tone so bored Duncan almost expects him to start checking his nails.

The First Enchanter’s eyes narrow, but he fixes his smile on his face. “Now child,” Irving reproves, flicking a glance at Duncan “It is not so dire as all that.”

Surana hisses out a long breath, his fists clenched tight at his sides. Duncan blinks. Surana's reaction to Irving's gentle words is surprising, and Irving himself is clearly nervous to even have him present for this conversation. Usually, he is content to leave mage business to the mages, but he’s curious.

“I’m sorry,” Duncan says, cutting into the mages’ growing staring contest. “But what is this phylactery?”

Irving presses his lips together. “Blood is taken from all apprentices when they first come to the tower and it is preserved in special vials,” he explains.

Ah, Duncan thinks sourly. Of course. “So they can be hunted down if they turn apostate.”

“Blood magic, so that the templars may hunt down users of blood magic,” Surana says, a cruel twist to his mouth. “They said I’d understand when I’m older, but I can’t say it seems any less hypocritical from the other side of the Harrowing.”

“Kyrien!” Irving snaps, coming to the end of his patience. “You are old enough to know better than to talk like that, especially in front of guests!”

Surana glares, but stays silent as Irving stares him down. His eyes are like flint chips in his face, the stark lines of his tattoos lending him a dangerous cast. Irving turns to Duncan after a few airless moments.

“We have so few choices,” Irving says beseechingly. Surana bores holes into the side of his head with his eyes. “The gift of magic is looked upon with suspicion and fear. We _have_ to prove we are strong enough to handle our power responsibly.”

Duncan thought he was hiding his growing distaste better than that. Or perhaps it is just that this topic inspires particular defensiveness in the First Enchanter. It cannot be easy, living day by day under the judgmental gazes of the Chantry and its templars, fearful of even the slightest mistake or misstep that might draw unwanted attention. Duncan has known many mages in his years with the Wardens, and very few of them like to talk about their time in the circle, if indeed they came from one.

Duncan says nothing, and after a moment Irving closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and turns back to Surana. “And you, my boy, have proven your strength,” he says tiredly, dropping entirely the air of grandfatherly pride he’d been carrying since his student entered the room. “I present you with your robes, your staff, and a ring bearing the Circle’s insignia. Wear them proudly, for you have earned them.”

Surana’s mouth twists as he hooks the staff onto some catch on his back, slips on the ring after a careless inspection, and balls up the robes and tucks them under one arm. Duncan would have expected some sort of ceremony to induct a full mage into the Circle, but Surana doesn’t seem the slightest bit put out about the lack of fanfare. He doesn’t seem to feel much of anything.

“What happens now?” he asks.

“Patience, child,” Irving says, and Duncan sighs inwardly. “You have been through an ordeal. Let us not rush things. Take your time to rest or study in the library. The day is yours.”

If there was any time to rush things it is the time of a growing hoard monsters, and the only hope of stemming the tide rests on the shoulders of a king whose tutors let him read too many storybooks. Duncan had thought he had successfully impressed the urgency on the First Enchanter, but perhaps this is what comes of locking otherwise reasonable men into towers their whole lives.

“Can I leave the tower?” Surana demands.

“Not yet—”

“Then it isn’t really mine, is it?” he sneers. He turns his back on Irving. “Do you know how long it has been since I felt grass, ser Duncan? On a clear day I might see it on the banks of the lake. And trees, too. I remember as a child that I greatly enjoyed climbing trees.”

“Kyrien,” Irving says wearily. “Please. The tower walls protect us as much as they protect others from us.”

“And thank the Maker for that,” Surana replies. “Otherwise I might feel _really_ unsafe in here.”

Duncan has the strong feeling that he should not be present for this conversation. More importantly, he doesn't want to be “I will return to my quarters.”

“Yes, of course Warden-Commander. Would you be so kind as to escort Duncan back to his room, child?” Duncan suppresses a snort. He wonders if Irving has heard the stories of his previous visits here, long ago as they were.

Surana’s eyes narrow. “Has Duncan forgotten where his quarters are?” he asks sweetly.

“Being difficult, are we?” Irving says with admirable restraint to his temper. Duncan is almost ready to cuff him upside the head himself. “You are no longer an apprentice, Mage Surana, and I expect you to set a good example.”

“If it is your command, then I must obey,” Surana says, sweeping an ironic little bow striding out of the room without a backwards glance. Duncan suspects that it will be a sunny day in the void before this lad sets anything resembling what Irving might consider to be a good example.

“Oh, and Kyrien!” Irving calls after him. Surana pops back in the doorway with a raised eyebrow. “I’m sure it goes without saying that you shall not discuss the Harrowing with those who have not undergone the rite.”

“And yet there you are, saying it. Coming, Duncan? The halls can be terribly twisty, even when you’re walking a mere twenty yards away on the same floor.”

Duncan follows Kyrien through the door and down the shadowed hall in silence, watching him thoughtfully. It’s possible this one could do well in the army, but based on what he just saw of the lad’s behavior towards authority, Duncan doubts it. That sort of chip one’s shoulder doesn’t simply fall away when a stranger starts screaming orders in one’s face, and likely he would desert rather than be forced to return to the Circle. The Grey Wardens, on the other hand, have taken far worse than a surly, spoiled, impertinent teenager and turned him into someone who could make a real difference in the world. As Duncan knows very well.

But that’s only if this lad is strong enough to endure the struggle. The situation in Ostagar has Duncan scrambling, and he’s prepared to take on anyone capable of putting up a fight and deal with the consequences later but even so, a sheltered life in a protected tower doesn’t fill Duncan with confidence in this one’s fortitude. It helps that he is clearly eager to leave the strict oversight of the Circle, and any amount of magic is a significant boon in a fight, but neither of those things will matter if his nerve shatters on his first encounter with darkspawn. Though the Maker knows that Duncan has been surprised by people before.

“Thank you for walking with me,” Duncan says once they’re out of earshot of Irving’s office. “I am glad for the company.”

Surana casts a lidded, undeniably suggestive look look over his shoulder, pulling up so that they can walk side by side. “No need for thanks, Duncan,” he says, dark eyes glittering up beneath the striking fan of his lashes. “I wanted to talk to you a little more anyway.”

Duncan’s eyebrows climb up to his hairline. Well. That’s… interesting. “I wouldn’t have known it from the conversation back there,” he says evenly.

Surana laughs and waves him off, and Duncan’s wary attention sharpens. “I have a reputation to uphold, you know,” he says lightly, but with a peculiar tension at the edges. “Kyrien Surana cares for nothing but books and picking fights with his betters. Can’t seem too eager, you know. People may become suspicious.”

“Is that so,” Duncan says, cataloging the lad’s wink and easy smile, the stark contrast of his body language between Irving’s office and now. Suspicious of what, he can’t help but wonder. His motivations? Duncan is feeling a mite suspicious of his motivations fright now, if truth be told. He recalls his first visit to this tower and the apprentice he met here, decades ago now, and nearly smiles. Boredom, probably. It’s the only explanation for his apparent irresistible magnetism in this place.

“Mhm. Although I could think of a few more interesting ways to throw them off the scent.” Surana winks.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” Duncan asks, ignoring the flirtation entirely. The lad will get bored of it in a moment or two, so long as he fails to react.

“Irving said you’re a Grey Warden.”

“I am.”

Surana hums, biting thoughtfully at a plush bottom lip. “I’ve only heard about them in passing. Weren’t they banned from Ferelden?.”

“They were, until King Maric lifted the ban a some time ago. And it’s a good thing they did, or the current situation might have been far more dire. It is a sad fact of our history that our order is often shunned or ignored until such time as the need is very great.”

“Locked out of sight until some general gets the bright idea to scramble for more firepower? That must be terribly frustrating,” Kyrien drawls.

Duncan can’t help a short bark of laughter. “Yes, I suppose the circumstances must feel somewhat familiar.”

“It’s interesting. I’ve seen no one but mages, templars, and bounty hunters bringing in mages for all the years I have been here, and suddenly we’re up to our eyeballs in generals and royal advisers and now a Grey Warden. I don’t even know what a Grey Warden _does_ , exactly.”

“A sentence I wish I have heard less in the past sixmonth,” Duncan sighs. Sofia Dryden had done her order no favors, meddling in politics. Even after decades of rebuilding, the Grey Wardens are not the presence in Fereldan Duncan might have wished for. “Our duty is to battle darkspawn. Wherever they appear. We are elves, humans, and dwarves united by this common purpose.”

Surana’s attention snaps to Duncan. “Elves?”

Duncan looks down to catch his eye. “Some of our most honored Wardens have been elves,” Duncan says. “The hero Garahel, the last Warden to slay an archdemon, was one such.”

“Garahel,” says Surana, slowly, as if he is tasting the name. His tongue swipes absently, nervously, over his lightly reddened lips. His eyes flicker up at Duncan, almost shy. “An elf. I didn’t know that. They teach us about the blights, but…”

“Yes, he was an elf. And so were an unknowable number of others, equally as heroic for all they did not have the distinction of striking the final blow themselves. The darkspawn threaten everyone. They do not distinguish between the races, and neither should we.”

Surana scoffs, that brief moment of vulnerability shuttered behind a cool, flinty mask. “I’ve heard that one before.”

Duncan hums, unable to disagree. The Wardens as a whole are better than most, but of course their ranks draw from the world at large, and there is nothing that stops people from bringing in their own prejudices. He cannot imagine that this twer is much better. “Has it been difficult? Being an elf in the circle.”

Surana opens his mouth to speak, and then presses his lips together in a thin line. Emotions tumble across his face, and Duncan knows the answer before he says it.

“Yes,” he says through a clenched jaw, voice mostly steady. He rubs a hand across his eyes. “Not just that but. Yes. All the time.”

Duncan puts a hand on his shoulder, stopping them short for a moment. “It is hard to change perceptions,” he says. Surana turns his face sharply away “I have tried and failed to reason with people, but when they have spent their lives seeing elves as something less than human…” He sighs and shakes his head. He squeezes Surana’s shoulder a little, wishing he had something more palatable to give than the truth.

For a brief moment, Surana leans very slightly into his touch, but he steps out of it quickly. “I’m a mage now,” he says, wrapping his pride about him like armor and tipping his head back to look Duncan straight in the eye. “People should fear _me_.”

With that he sets off down the hall again, and Duncan frowns at his back and follows. Their steps seem to echo in the dim hall. Is it unusual for this part of the Tower to be so eerily empty at this time of day? It could be the middle of the night, for all the clues the steadily glowing mage lights dotting the windowless walls give. Duncan can’t shake the feeling of unreality this place gives him, like he and everyone in here exists in some place completely separate from the world he knows. It makes the lad’s words echo uneasily in his head.

“Surana…” Flinty eyes lock to his, challenge blazing from them. Duncan needs to tread lightly here, to choose his words carefully. “I’ve seen a lot of fear, and what people do with it. You should want respect; fear is just a different kind of hatred.”

Surana pins him with a scathingly unimpressed look, but lets the matter go. Duncan has seen it before, on people who have swallowed too much for too long and intend to do so no longer. The Circles would like their mages to believe that they they exist in large part for their safety, but security has done this young man no favors. If he cannot get respect, he’ll take fear.

Duncan feels a flicker of unease. It may be foolish to recruit this angry young thing into the Grey Wardens. He he could very well flourish there, but if he cannot be trained out of his spite and arrogance that just might make him more dangerous. Sophia Dryden, after all, had been by all accounts an excellent Warden.

“Your quarters, Ser Warden,” Surana announces with a little smirk, breaking Duncan out of his reverie “Just where you left them this morning.”

Duncan laughs a little and follows him in, banishing his dark thoughts. No sense borrowing trouble; there’s plenty of trouble to be had right at hand, these days. “I’m sorry for the waste of your time. I don’t think the First Enchanter wants me wandering around without an escort.”

Surana tips him a sidelong look. “It was my pleasure,” he says lowly, closing the door behind them and sweeping a curious gaze across the plain, cozy room. After a brief assessment he crosses to perch himself right on Duncan’s bed. Duncan stares at him. “You’re very interesting to talk to. I have more questions, if you are not to busy?”

“If you like,” Duncan says slowly, raising a brow. “I do have chairs.”

The corner of Surana’s pretty mouth turns up, and he runs a hand over the top of Duncan’s blanket. “I know.” Apparently he’s perfectly willing to set aside dark thoughts as well. Duncan’s not terribly certain that’s a good thing

“Mage Surana,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose. The back of his neck is prickling with the particular tension of walking into a room that is all over traps.

“Warden-Commander,” Surana drawls. “There’s no need to be so formal, is there? Call me Kyrien.”

“ _Surana_. This is not appropriate.”

Surana laughs, light and surprisingly musical. “Really, Duncan,” he chides, toeing off one soft boot to reveal a pale line of naked lag. Duncan swallows. “There’s nothing inappropriate about a newly minted mage of the Circle, asking Grey Warden questions about the outside world.”

“Is that what’s happening here.”

“What else? I haven’t left the circle since I was eight years old, and now I might be going into battle. It’s natural for a young man such as myself to be,” the second boot, toed off, falls to the floor with a light thunk, “curious.”

“Naturally. And how old _are_ you, _young_ man?”

“Twenty,” Kyrien lies baldly, a smile on his mouth and a spark in his eye, tucking up his knees to curl himself up on Duncan’s bed like he belongs there. Duncan is an old soldier, and feels more so by the day, but he is not dead. Springing one trap will set the whole room into chaos.

“Well,” Duncan says, sitting on a chair a safe distance away. “Ask your questions, and I will answer them as best I can.”

To Duncan’s mild surprise, Surana does have actual questions for him; about the darkspawn, the archdemon, the blight. Duncan is not Irving, and he does not mince words. If Surana is the type to balk at the mere discussion of monsters and battle and danger, Duncan would know now.

He doesn’t. He’s focused and attentive, listening to every word Duncan says and asking intelligent questions. There will be no telling how he’ll hold up to the realities of battle until he gets there, but his calm attentiveness is reassuring.

“So why are you here?” Surana asks finally. He’s sprawled across Duncan’s bed like he owns it, the firelight washing a golden cast over his pale skin, his robes riding up appealingly along his long bare legs. “The King’s Generals were here weeks ago to select of fistful of mages from his collection and line them up with the rest of his soldiers. Greagoir’s been shouting about it ever since.”

“The Circle only sent seven mages to Ostagar. I asked King Cailan’s permission to come seek a greater commitment.”

Surana raises his eyebrows. “I know the mages who were sent. They’re our most senior Enchanters, every single one of them is a veteran of several major battles and experts on combat magic. How many mages could you possibly need?”

“I want to put a mage or two within every contingent, and I cannot do that with just seven.”

Surana whistles. “Good luck getting _that_ past Irving and Greagoir”

“I was under the impression that Irving was more amenable to further commitment from the circle, but his hands are tied by the Knight-Commander, and through him the chantry.”

“Yeah, Irving’s very good at giving _impressions_ ,” Surana snorts. “The mages here like to feel like they have an ally, so Irving makes a great show of resistance and diplomacy and compromise, but really he’s no more inclined to let mages out from under his thumb than old Greg. He’s just subtler about it.”

“You’re very cynical.” Duncan tells him, not disapproving.

Surana looks at him sharply. “For such a young man, you mean?”

“For anyone. It wasn’t meant to be a criticism, provided you aren’t letting disdain cloud your better judgment.”

“Most people here would probably tell you I don’t have better judgment,” Surana says wryly. “But it’s not just my opinion, if that means anything. The Circle wasn’t short on volunteers for the front, but they don’t like sending the less pious ones out into the world. Probably Irving lowballed you last time so he could send seven more mages and look like he’s making some great sacrifice to the cause while he’s got three hundred mages sitting on their thumbs and falling asleep on their books back home.”

Duncan stares. “So many?”

“More or less.” Surana shrugs, letting his head loll back on Duncan’s pillow. “I never went around and counted, but it’s a big tower and mages keep being born despite the templars’ best efforts. Lots of them are kids, obviously, or squinty-eyed old scholars who only read books written more than four hundred years ago and never do anything interesting, but there are loads more than seven who would be useful in a battle.”

Duncan sighs, braces his elbows on his knees and props up his forehead with one hand. “Mages will make all the difference in this battle.” He says tiredly. “The darkspawn have their own magic, and our resources must exceed theirs.”

“Maybe Greg and Irving will see sense,” Surana says, not sounding at all as though he believes it. “They do like to go on about safety and security here, but there are plenty people here bored enough to start summoning demons in the middle of breakfast just to break up the monotony. I could name ten mages of the top off my head who would gladly slit a hundred darkspawn throats just to hear trees rustle in the breeze. ”

Duncan quirks a brow. “And I suppose you would be at the top of that list?”

The corner of Surana’s mouth twitches, but he doesn’t respond. He stares at the ceiling, twisting a ring restlessly around his finger. Duncan waits him out.

“Do you think…” he hesitates. “Do you think I could join the army?”

Duncan leans back in his chair. “I don’t know,” he says, watching him closely. “Do you?”

“Yes.” Surana says at once, turning his head to look at Duncan with a flare of defiance in those dark eyes. “I think I could help.”

“It’s not an easy life, being a soldier.”

“I’m choking to death on an easy life,” Surana snaps. He pulls himself upright as his anger heats up. “Each time someone waxes poetical on how safe I am locked in this, this _cage_ I have to do breathing exercises to keep myself from strangling them! Just because I have less of a chance of dying doesn’t make me safe.”

Duncan grew up hungry, before his conscription. There is not much he would not have given for the protection thick stone walls and regular meals. But then, there are different kinds of hunger. “I take it that is an “impious” opinion to express?”

“Ha! To say the least. Who knows what sort of dangerous ideas I might get out in the world, away from the holy guiding light of the Maker’s word that would have me crush myself into servitude lest I fall into the unpardonable temptation of independent thought?”

“And you believe that is why they send so few to Ostagar.” Duncan sighs, and shakes his head. “Darkspawn are a greater threat than blood mages, even abominations. It takes decades for the world to recover from a Blight, and yet the Chantry keeps our best chances at victory locked away. I wish they could see that we must stop at nothing — ”

Duncan cuts himself off, swiping tiredly at his face. “Ah, listen to me. An old man’s rantings can’t be very interesting.”

“Oh don’t feel too bad,” Surana assures him with a wane smile. “As an apprentice, old man talking have defined my life.”

Duncan snorts, and Surana’s grin speads wide on his face, and they dissolve together into laughter. The dark tension in the room cracks and falls away, leaving Surana rolling a little on the bed, his robes riding up past his knees. Humor looks good on him, Duncan thinks. It melts the brittle strength of him in some undefinable way, making his limited years in the world show less, somehow.

“Honestly,” he confesses when their hilarity dies down, “it’s nice to listen to someone talk about something real for once.” He stretches, back arching, and Duncan’s mouth goes a little dry. Surana’s dropped the outrageous flirtation, at least the deliberate aspect of it, but that still leaves him bare-legged and relaxed on Duncan’s bed, firelight dancing over his skin and softening the severe slashes of his tattoos. Duncan wonders if he got them to emulate the Dalish, like so many other elven youths born amongst humans.

Surana turns his head and catches Duncan’s eyes. Catches and holds, as he finds that he cannot look away, and the tension between them builds dangerously.

“Duncan,” He murmurs, twisting to face him, dark hair tumbling over his shoulders and across his face. His lips part and his tongue dips out to wet them. Duncan has seen less blatant invitations from people whose livelihoods depended on them, but never paired with such raw desire. It pins him in place and Duncan wrestles mightily with his baser nature. He should not accept what Surana is offering. He _cannot_. He plans to put this young man through the Joining and then, if he survives it, under his own command. A dalliance of this sort is a distraction that he cannot afford to risk when —

There is a scuff outside the bedroom door, a soft shoe slipping on stone. It is only just loud enough for Duncan’s Warden-enhanced hearing, but Surana’s whole body snaps to attention, eyes flickering to the door. Duncan watches with distant fascination as his face goes coolly calculating before melting back to that sweet flirtation, though it no longer fits quite so naturally onto his face.

“I’d like to talk more,” Surana demurs, a calculated edge to his sensuality that wasn’t there before. He slides off the edge of the bed his robes sliding all the way up to mid-thigh before dropping back to the floor as he takes to his feet. Duncan is weak enough to acknowledge a small pang of loss. “But I have duties to attend to.”

As a ploy it’s rather transparent. Whatever ‘duties’ he has with whomever is skulking outside Duncan’s door are certainly not official in nature.

“Of course,” Duncan says only. “Don’t let me keep you.”

When Surana carefully shuts the door behind him, Duncan gets up to listen. After so many years, Duncan has an instinct for trouble, and he suspects that Surana has a talent for it.

“Going through another personal crisis?” Surana’s light, mocking tone carries easily through the door. There’s a shuffle of feet and a quiet mutter that Duncan can’t quite pick up. “Why are you whispering? It looks very suspicious.”

It does at that. Duncan strains his ears, hoping for some kind of hint at what sort of trouble these two might be brewing, but they’re already moving away from the door, footsteps fading down the hall. He leans his forehead against the doorway, squeezing his eyes shut, and thinks. Surana is a promising recruit, for all his youth and lack of polish. If he gets into some kind of trouble… Well. Duncan will just have to get him out of it. He’s long thought the right of conscription to be a barbaric practice, but he’s unwillingly come around to his old mentor’s point of view of late, and sees its uses. In this respect, at least.

Perhaps he’ll contrive a reason to walk through the tower in a little while. Maybe he’ll be able to head off trouble before drastic action needs to be taken.

\---

His excuse to be out at such a late hour — a quick trip to the storeroom to fetch a few candles for a late night — is clumsy as these things go, but so far no one has challenged him. Only the tranquil seem to be up and about this way, listlessly performing assigned tasks or simply gazing blankly into space. He wonders with a slight chill if they will do so until they are told otherwise.

Kinlock Hold has always loomed in his memory as a dark, forbidding place and wandering its halls in the dead of night has not improved his impression. Shadows seem constantly to move only just on the outside of his vision, and he cannot shake the prickling feeling that he is being watched, even when he cannot see another soul. His footsteps echo, cold and distorted, over the curving, serpentine walls of the chilly halls.

What must it be like, to be a child here? To grow surrounded by cold stone, only glimpsing sunlight from the tower's too-few windows, never to see their families again. Duncan’s childhood had been no easy thing, and freedom is cold comfort for an empty belly, but… He can still find some sympathy, it seems.

Duncan turns a corner and there’s a girl on her hands and knees, scrubbing the stone floor. When she looks up at the sound of Duncan’s approach, his breath catches. The lyrium brand stands out starkly against her forehead, and her dull gaze seems closer to the sightless stare of the newly dead than that of a living, breathing creature. A chill runs down Duncan’s spine as he walks past.

She cannot be so much older than Surana. Duncan wonders if he knew her, before the brand. If he’d seen her laugh, or cry, or get frustrated during her lessons. He wonders why she was made tranquil, if she’d been put through the Harrowing, if Surana had grown up under the shadow of that same fate. The threat of living death. Duncan tries to imagine it and then has to stop; he has a job to do, and he helps no one by getting distracted from it.

At the next turn of the corridor, Duncan hears voices in the hall, low murmurs which do not invite attention but are not in fear of it either. Templars, Duncan assumes as he prepares to deliver his story; they’re the only ones allowed in the halls at night, after all. But then as Duncan draws closer he finds he recognizes one of the voices.

“…rushing off to, eh? You know what happens when you get caught out of bed after hours.”

“I’m on an errand for the First Enchanter. He told me to attend to the Grey Warden personally.” Duncan suppresses a snort. Any “personal attention” Surana has paid him outside walking Duncan to his room has almost definitely been a task of his own invention.

The unfamiliar voice — a templar Duncan sees as he rounds the corner, he was right on that count at least — seems to share Duncan’s opinion on that matter. “Oh, aye, and I’ll bet the First Enchanter told you to _personally_ get on your knees and suck his cock too.” A soft clink of armor as the templar steps forward, crowding Surana against the wall. The templar’s hands are bare, one curling possessively around Surana’s waist while the other braces itself on the wall next to his head. He hasn’t yet noticed Duncan where he is pressed into the shadows.

Surana is quiet in the templar’s grasp, eyes narrowed but blank, yielding to the single curled finger under his chin to to allow the templar to tip his head back and expose the long line of his throat. Passivity is not a quality Duncan would readily associate with him in their short aquaintence, and by the lad’s clenched fists and brittle, straight-backed tension, it does not come easily to him. Duncan wonders, a little sickened, how common an occurrence this scene is.

“You little slag,” the templar murmurs, ducking his head to run his lips along the curve of Surana’s bare throat. He sounds pleased, and Duncan’s own fists clench. “First new bit of cock to show up in an age and you can’t wait to throw yourself on it, can you?”

Surana remains limp the templar’s hold, none of that earlier wickedness in his dull-eyed stare in the middle distance, and he moves readily with the press of the templar’s hands. Duncan experiences an insane urge to pluck him from this man’s clutches and whisk him far away right now, in the dead of night, and diplomacy be damned.

“Maybe I just need a change of scenery.”

“Oh, aye?” the Templar snorts, running his hand down Surana’s body, between his legs. “What, you think if you grab your ankles for him he’ll whisk you away to become a Grey Warden? A little scrap of a mageling slut like you?”

“I’m a full mage now. I could be useful, as a Warden.”

“As a bed slave, maybe,” he chuckles. Duncan grits his teeth. “Roads are lonely, and Maker knows you’d be plenty _useful_ at that — ”

This is not Duncan’s place; he is a guest here, he is not supposed to be out in the corridors, and this man is not one of his Wardens. He does not make it a habit of involving himself in the affairs of other peoples, whose customs and lifestyle are not his own and so are not his to interfere with, but he cannot walk away from this. He recalls Surana, glittering with curiosity in the firelight just a few hours ago, and can barely recognize him in this unresponsive, blank-faced youth. Duncan backs into the shadows a few paces around the circle of the inner tower walls and then strides forward, deliberately letting his bootheels clack on the stone floor and echo up the walls.

When Surana and the templar come back into sight, they’re standing apart, near-identical wary looks on their faces. The Templar relaxes when he sees Duncan — not terribly well-judged of him — and Surana tips his head to the side, eyes narrowing slightly.

“Excuse me, ser,” Duncan says, nodding his head to the templar before leveling a stern look at Surana. “Where you able to locate candles?”

Surana blinks at him, hesitating a beat before he picks up on the misdirection. “Just more tallow. Oswen’s being stingy with the beeswax.”

“Oh, bother,” Duncan sighs, eyeing the Templar’s growing irritation. “It seems I’ve troubled you for nothing at this late hour.”

“No trouble — ” Surana says just as the Templar cuts in with “Mages are not to be out of their quarters after lights out. This’un almost landed himself in a fair bit of trouble, matter of fact.”

“Oh!” Duncan exclaims, affecting a look of wide-eyed surprise and burying his contempt down deep. “I apologize, I had no idea! It’s been a long while since I’ve visited this Circle, and I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the rules particular to this tower, and I was quite insistent. I’ll escort him back then, now we’ve cleared up the misunderstanding.”

“Well, see, it’s not that simple,” the templar says, blocking Surana’s path as he tries to make his way to Duncan and curling a proprietary hand around his shoulder. Duncan vividly fantasizes about putting a fist through the man’s face. “You may’ve not known the rules but the lad does full well. Standard procedure says I need to pull him aside and make some inquiries, you understand.”

Duncan understands very well what kind of “inquiries” this man is likely to make in the middle of the night in a dark corridor, though he hopes none of them are actually “standard procedure.” He needs to get Surana away from him, and he needs to do it without violence and without inviting further excuses for Greagoir to balk at sending aid to Ostagar. Normally it would not be such a problem; Duncan is a big man, obviously well-trained, and with Grey Warden vigor belying his age and years of fighting experience. Few are willing to escalate things very far with him. This templar, however, is a warrior in his own domain, and seems more likely to meet attempts of intimidation with violence.

Duncan forces the muscles of his face and body to relax, doing his best to look like a tired yet friendly older man on the road who would really like nothing better than to get back to the first comfortable bed he’s had in weeks. It’s not a particularly vigorous exercise in imagination. His arms he keeps loose at his side, and on his face he keeps a pleasantly entreating smile he does not feel. “Surely that’s not necessary? Like I said, this is all just a misunderstanding. I can speak the the First Enchanter personally if I truly must, but I can’t think on why we should have to bother him for something so trivial, do you?”

That, as Duncan had guessed, has an interesting effect. Being Commander of the Grey of Fereldan has been a fascinating experience, especially under the threat of a Blight. There’s no love lost for the Grey Warden’s in this country, it is true, but neither is any man quite willing to dismiss their function. The result is a grudging respect that causes almost more problems than it solves.

Here, at least, it solves one problem; this templar very much does not want the First Enchanter to take a closer look at what he gets up to at night, and he certainly does not want to pit his authority against that of the Warden-Commander in the same stroke. Duncan’s presence is so often resented, but his influence is undeniable. The templar makes his decision quickly.

“Very well, Warden-Commander. I’ll let him off with a warning this time. Come, lad. I’ll escort you to your room.”

“Oh, there’s no need to trouble yourself, ser,” Duncan cuts in firmly. “I wouldn’t want you to be distracted from your duties due to my ignorance. I’ll escort him myself.’

“There’s no need — ”

“I really must insist,” he presses, with just a hint of steel. The templar narrows his eyes.

“…all right then. If you _insist_.”

“Excellent,” Duncan says, beckoning Surana to him. “Have a pleasant evening, Ser.”

As they leave, Duncan feels eyes on the back of his head, and hears no clank of armor to indicate the templar moving away. It makes the space between his shoulders itch, as if Duncan can _feel_ how badly the man wants to put a dagger in it. He keeps a firm grip on his paranoia as they round the corner and break the line of sight; no one is going to attack him while he’s an invited guest of this tower, even if Duncan can’t shake the feeling that it _could_ happen. Something about the empty, echoing stone, the restless shadows, makes it feel as though any sinister thing may be possible here.

Eventually, though, the feeling fades. He looks down at Surana, walking calmly with his eyes fixed straight ahead, and feels a different sort of uneasiness build up within him. Surana’s robes are curiously unrumpled, his hair falling to his shoulders in an inky-black cascade without a single hint of a snarl. He does not look like a young man who had been shoved against the wall and pawed by some armored brute a handful of moments ago. Perhaps it is some sort of magic, although Duncan can only imagine what the chantry sisters might have to say about using magic for such a purpose.

Surana flicks a look up at him from the corner of his eye, and Duncan realizes that he has been staring at him in silent contemplation for several moments too long. He snaps his eyes forward and clears his throat.

“Well this is a reversal from earlier this evening, is it not?” he tries, going for casual and friendly. His voices sounds oddly muted in the darkened hall.

Surana sighs. “There’s no need to pretend,” he says evenly. “You heard. What Ser Algar was saying to me.”

Duncan presses his lips together. “I did,” he says slowly, considering. Then adds “I meant it about speaking to the First Enchanter.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Surana says at once, a slight wrinkle in his nose. “Algar’s a lech, no mistake, but he usually makes it good. And he’s possessive, so he mostly keeps the others away. No need to ruin a good thing.”

A good thing. There are a lot of usually’s and mostly’s in that good thing, and Surana certainly didn’t seem like he was counting the Maker’s blessings as that man was putting his hands on him and calling him a slag. Duncan isn’t going to flutter any handkerchiefs about it, he’s certainly no stranger himself to having a good thing or two, for information or protection and the like. That was on the streets, though, where danger and hunger were constant companions. The rules were different.

“They say the circles are a sanctuary for mages,” Duncan hedges, keeping his tone carefully neutral. “Where they may develop their talents without fear of retribution.”

“I know you can’t be that stupid, Duncan.”

“I know it’s not perfect,” Duncan says, keeping the sharp note of irritation out of his voice because the lad is right; Duncan does know better, and more than most. “Nothing ever is. But if members of the Templar Order are so derelict in their duties to force themselves on their charges — ”

“No one is forcing me,” Surana snaps. “I’m not a whinging child, and it’s not like anyone gives a fuck about some orphaned elf brat anyway. It’s a good deal, and I can let anyone I want have me — ”

“Of course you can. But you should not have to in order to gain protection you should already — ”

Surana stops abruptly and whirls around to square up with Duncan. It should be comical, this little slip of a thing just out of boyhood staring down a seasoned fighter twice his size, but Duncan could not be further from amusement. Surana’s eyes glitter like sharpened knives, dark as pitch in his furious, porcelain-pale face. The hall they’re standing seems to grow darker, sparsely lit mage-lights seeming to dim in the corner of Duncan’s eye, but he cannot look away to check. Surana is darkly radiant, filling the whole of Duncan’s attention. Duncan’s hands twitch at his sides. An odd sort of pressure presses in on his ears.

“It is my _choice_.” He says, precisely, each word ringing in Duncan’s head like a bell. His tone is calm and even, but his fists are clenched tight and danger lurks in the shadows of his eyes. On this, he will not be contradicted.

“Peace, friend,” Duncan murmurs, holding up his hands. “I meant only that there is something terribly wrong, if that is a choice you have to make in the first place.”

The tension in the air crackles for one drawn moment, wavers, and then snaps. The pressure in Duncan’s ears pops. The lights shine at their usual brightness, the change so subtle Duncan finds himself wondering if they’d ever dimmed at all. He can look away from Surana’s eyes now, though he doesn’t immediately, and there is nothing odd about them at all apart from their color, accustomed as he is to the bright jewel tones more common in elf eyes.

Surana takes a step back and half-turns away, slowly and very deliberately retracting his claws and soothing his ruffled feathers. His countenance bears not one hint of apology, but he deliberately relaxes and makes himself small and nonthreatening. His eyes are still cold.

“That’s just how the world works. People will always take what they want, given the chance.

Duncan hums. “And what do you want, Mage Surana?”

Surana bares his teeth in a sour grimace. “Getting the fuck out of this tower would be a good start,” he says, and sets off down the hall without a backwards glance.

Duncan watches him for a few paces before following him.

\---

“I know for a fact this is not your room.”

“Forgot my boots,” Surana says airily, crossing the room to Duncan’s bed. He doesn’t seem inclined to linger on the confrontation in the hall, though Duncan has the feeling that this one can hold a grudge like a mabari with a bone.

“Did you now,” Duncan drawls, watching the lad sprawl on his bed with the same casual disregard for propriety as he had earlier. He glances at the soft-soled boot crumpled at the foot of his bed, recalls the soft slap of bare feet on stone, and is for a moment or two overcome with the surreal conviction that all the events between that moment and this were nothing more than a particularly vivid dream, no more real than a stroll through the fade. He sits heavily in the chair by the fire, wrestling with a peculiar sense of vertigo.

“Mmmhmm. I’d been coming back to fetch them when I got caught by Algar.” He grins wickedly at Duncan from the rumpled bedding, his lovely pink mouth twisted into a smirk. Duncan’s lightheadedness worsens.

“I’m sure you were,” he says pinches the bridge of his nose. “Surana…”

“Will you not call me by my first name? You sound like one of the Enchanters when you say it like that. Surana this, Surana that. Surana, stop interrupting the morning Chant. Surana, stop interrupting lessons with wild rants about elven oppression. Eat your vegetables. It’s very tiresome.”

“I don’t think that would be appropriate.”

“Why not?” Surana asks, lightly but with an edge to his voice. “I’m not an apprentice anymore, you heard Irving. I’m a full mage as of this morning, and we’ve discussed the possibility of my going to war. Why should we not speak to each other as adults? Unless, of course, you wish to remind me of my place, in which case please do continue to address me in the manner of a student or a subordinate. I’m used to it.”

Clunky as far as manipulation goes, Duncan notes distantly, but not ineffective. This is not, after all, the only circle mage and elf he has ever known. He knows just enough to know how little he understands about this world, for all a corner of his mind cannot let go of the particular luxuries of regular meals and soft beds that were denied him in his own childhood. He doesn’t want to add to this hardship

“Fair enough. Kyrien.” He concedes with a slight smile, pushing away a growing sense of foreboding. And before the lad’s smile can form into something more blatantly flirtatious, “and as we are both adults, perhaps you can tell me what that business was in the hall when you were leaving earlier.”

Kyrien blinks at him, forgetting entirely to mask his surprise. Perhaps he had thought himself subtle. Duncan presses his lips together in a small smile.

“Oh, it’s just Jowan,” he recovers hastily, contriving to look lightly amused. “Everything’s such a _drama_ with him, ever since we were kids. Nothing that couldn’t have waited until we saw each other at breakfast.”

Kyrien is a decent liar, but not an artful one. Good enough to fool the cloistered community of the tower, perhaps, but not enough to fool a man whose life has depended on deceit. Still, Duncan doesn’t think it’s worth pressing him. Kinloch Hold is built on secrets, one layered on top of the other, with glittering misdirection and slight of hand woven throughout. His duty is not to unravel them, to tease apart their twisting threads and follow them to their source, and thank the Maker for that. The templars want responsibility over the mages and they can keep it.

_But should they?_ Kyrien is curled on his bed, smirk melting slowly off his face as he turns his gaze to stare worriedly into the fire, even now showing more life and animation than when Duncan found him in that darkened hall. Should the templars keep that responsibility, when Duncan has heard stories, and has now seen first hand, what they do with it? Should it be their charge to shine the Maker’s light on the tower’s secrets when it’s become painfully clear to Duncan that they couldn’t detect intrigue if it had its lips around their cock?

Do the answers to these questions matter when he has but one duty, which must take precedence over all others, with a long journey into darkness and death that can be his only reward?

“Come on,” Duncan says, breaking the stillness of the room. This place is getting to him; he knows better by now than to obsess over things he cannot change. “Let’s get you to your room.”

Kyrien ignores him. He’s stared a long time into the fire, his expression slowly shedding it’s anxious cast and settling into something more resolute

“Can I ask you something?” Kyrien asks.

“I don’t see why you would stop now.”

Kyrien reacts with only a fleeting press of his lips. “Do you know anything about the Tranquil?”

Duncan’s mind flashes to that girl in the corridor, her vacant eyes, her the dull way she set herself at her task. “The mages whose connection to the Fade has been severed?” he asks, putting some effort into making his voice even. “Surely you would know more about that than I would.”

Kyrien shrugs. “I guess I’m curious about what non-mages think of it.”

Duncan lets out a long breath. “I cannot say I like it,” he admits. “It’s safer — for the mages and for everyone around them — but… I am no stranger to sacrifice. Perhaps this one is worthwhile, I cannot say.”

“That’s easy to say when it’s other people who must make the sacrifice,” Kyrien says bitterly.

Duncan thinks of an old friend, the lengths she went through to get out of the Circle, her despair and growing resignation as she slowly began to understand she had nowhere else to go. He doesn’t have to wonder what she thinks of tranquility; she may as well be sitting beside him, boring holes in his head with the sheer force of her disappointment as he hedges around the issue. Kyrien is no more impressed than she would be. He sits with his lips pressed tight, staring into the flickering flames.

“Yes,” Duncan concedes. “I suppose that’s true.”

“My best friend was made tranquil two years ago.”

Duncan tenses, feeling once more that each step forward is trapped one after the other. He thinks he rather preferred when that particular feeling was about sex. “Did she fail the Harrowing?”

“No, because then she’d be dead.” Kyrien snorts. “Not that there’s much difference. At least if she kicked it there wouldn’t be this empty-eyed _thing_ wearing my friend’s face wandering around where I have to look at it.”

“How…” Duncan has to step carefully here. Kyrien’s flinty glare looks as though it could freeze flame. Likely it could. “How come she was made tranquil then?”

“She _asked_ ,” he snarls. “The stupidest fucking — No one would have made her. She was talented and _pious_ and the teachers all liked her. She could have got through the Harrowing blindfolded, not that we knew that at the time but given all the idiots wandering around here in enchanter’s robes I wasn’t too worried.”

“Surely she had a reason.”

“Everyone has _reasons_ , some of them are just shitty.” Kyrien hugs his legs tight and stares into the fire. “A lot of apprentices died that year, more than usual. Even the Templars seemed upset. Solona knew her turn was coming up and she was having a bloody meltdown about it, waking up our whole dorm with screaming nightmares, flubbing spells she’d mastered when she was _ten._ She was a mess. We all tried to talk her down, the apprentices and some of the teachers, and it seemed like it was working for a while but. Then her girlfriend failed her harrowing.”

“Does… do all apprentices who fail their harrowing die?”

“Yes.” Kyrien bites out the word quick and vicious. “She found out at dinner with the rest of us, because we’re not supposed to have relationships with each other, so even if the instructors _had_ known about them they wouldn’t have acknowledged it by giving her the goddamn courtesy of telling her in private. She didn’t say one word to anyone until the end of the week, when she told us she was going to accept the brand. She said she didn’t want to risk dying, but that was bullshit. She just didn’t want to live with it.”

His voice is cool and steady, like he’s telling a story out of a history book. His voice laced with the contempt of an adolescent secure in the certainty that _they_ would have done better, if only they had been there. It’s very convincing, except for the way his arms tighten around his legs and yet still fail to hid the faint tremble over his whole body.

Duncan has comforted friends and soldiers before, but it always leaves him at a loss. Any words he may come up with always feel cheap, somehow. They feel especially so in this dim room in a dark tower in the middle of a lake, as isolated as is possible to be, with this young man barely out of boyhood unable to simply admit that he misses his friend. Duncan wonders if he saw her tonight, wandering the halls, if that’s what brought out this sudden thread of melancholy. He looks terribly lonely, curled up tight and small in a strange man’s room, but Duncan still hesitates before rising from his safe, solitary chair and crossing the room to sit next to him.

“Everyone liked her,” Kyrien murmurs into his knees. “No one understood why she would bother with the likes of me and Jowan. We certainly didn’t. Out of everyone in this fucking tower she was probably the least likely to _talk_ to a demon, let alone turn to blood magic, but they mutilated her anyway. Now she’s nothing and I have to look at it, but hey. At least we’re safer.”

He glares up at Duncan, his whole body tight and trembling. He is sharp enough for Duncan to cut himself on. Something in Duncan’s chest seizes, looking at him. The rebellious brat, the sloe-eyed little wanton, these are just tools for him. Masks to hide away the heavy iron core of will and resentment that will turn him into a deadly combatant, that will let him bear the burden of the Grey Warden taint without wavering.

Duncan cannot help but nurse a small tinge of regret. He is so young, now. He will be far too young in thirty years. But the Wardens need his strength, now more than ever.

“Has something happened, to bring this on?” Duncan asks. Kyrien turns his face sharply away. “Is it to do with your friend? Jowan?”

Silence stretches out between them, thick and dark. Kyrien examines his hands, nail bitten and soft, and does not meet Duncan’s eyes.

“Have you ever seen blood magic?”

Duncan’s breath catches in his throat. The Wardens tend to turn a blind eye to blood magic, though they take pains to be quiet about it. The Grey Wardens do not turn down any tool that can be used to fight the darkspawn, and he’s even heard of a Captain based in Nevarra who openly prefers blood mages in her squad. Duncan has never met her, but the stories are enough to inflame his even his stunted Andrastian sensibilities.

But Duncan tells him what he knows. “Only once, in my youth. It was just after I had joined the Grey Wardens and my mentor and I encountered a group of Templars hunting a blood mage.” He takes a deep, steadying breath, distantly pleased that it does not waver. Thirty years later and the memory has not lost its bite. Kyrien is looking at him raptly. “I was far away, and I cannot be sure what I saw, but… He forced some of the templars to turn on their fellows. It was dreadful to behold.”

An understatement. Duncan had had nightmares for months after, though it had been difficult for outside observers to distinguish them from those brought with his Joining, and no one had asked him about them. It wasn’t only that some of the templars had been turned, but the look of sick betrayal on the faces of the brothers of arms that they slew, the horrified screaming and begging, the fact that the ones who were not controlled couldn’t bring themselves to turn their blades to their friends, and were cut down without mercy. The idea of fighting darkspawn had almost seemed easy, after that.

“He was trying to survive.”

Duncan almost wishes he had the lad’s certainty. “And he might have,” he allows, “if he hadn’t overlooked one templar, who snuck up behind him and cleaved his head in two.”

Kyrien casts his eyes back at the fire. “I suppose escape is hardly ever that easy.”

“Sometimes,” Duncan says carefully, “what looks like the easiest solution has unintended consequences. You blind yourself by focusing on the obvious path, and miss the snake in the grass.”

Kyrien huffs and shakes his head, rubbing his eyes with the heals of one hand. “ _Maker_ ,” he groans with a roll of his eyes. He runs the hand through his hair and smiles shakily up at Duncan. “Now you _really_ sound like one of my teachers.”

“I do, do I?” Duncan says sardonically. “And you _usually_ roll around in your teachers’ bed’s like this, do you?”

Kyrien’s smile settles more solidly on his face, and turns wicked. He sways to press himself along Duncan’s side. “Only the hot ones.”

“Maker,” Duncan mimics, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Nearly three decades in the Grey Wardens and _you_ are going to be the death of me.”

“You are being very unreasonable about the whole thing,” Kyrien agrees, grinning when Duncan splutters. “Honestly if you were going to tell me off by now you would have done. I really don’t know what you’re waiting for.”

Kyrien snuggles up closer to Duncan’s side and nuzzles a little under his ear. Duncan groans and slides a hand in his hair, not directing him but simply… holding on, as the feeling of lips and breath on sensitive skin send shivering sparks of warmth cascading all the way down his spine and right to his groin. If Duncan were a better man he would indeed have turned him off some time ago with no uncertain terms. If he were a stronger one he would do so now, no matter how soft and warm and sweet Kyrien feels curled right up against his side. His body, starved for gentle touch and simple rest, has betrayed him utterly.

“If you want something from me,” Duncan says, because he’s weak, but not coward enough to fool himself. “Then ask for it.”

Kyrien tips his head back to look at Duncan for a few searching moments. There’s solemn cast to his face, still; a shadow over his eyes he has not quite been able to banish. Then he grins, hooking a hand around the back of Duncan’s neck for leverage and pouring himself into Duncan’s lap. He drapes his arms over Duncan’s shoulders and starts pressing soft, sweet kisses along the length of his neck. Unbidden, Duncan’s hands slide around the small of his back, and the boy melts into his touch, shifting enticingly in Duncan’s lap. _Maker_.

“You are still not asking,” Duncan says, when he can trust his voice.

Kyrien lets out a soft sigh, leaning away slightly so that he might run his hands down the broad plane of Duncan’s chest and down to his waist, where he slips his smooth little hands under Duncan’s shirt and strokes the skin underneath. Duncan shivers at the gentle touches, his mind going fuzzed and hazy. Kyrien watches the teasing path of his own hands for a few moments before tipping his head to the side and looking at Duncan through those long, dark lashes. “Will you fuck me, Duncan?”

Duncan had expected it, he had, but he hadn’t expected it to be so impossible to guard himself against the way those words, whispered so sweetly, rip through him. His grip tightens and his breath shivers out. Kyrien is so small, fitting so perfectly in his lap, only eye level even like this. His robes drape over the both of them, hiding everything but the thickening ridge of Kyrien’s cock. Duncan slides one hand from his back to his hip and strokes his thumb over the the fabric of the robes. Kyrien’s breath ghosts across his neck as he moans softly, making a squirming attempt to shift Duncan’s hand between his legs. Warmth pools in Duncan’s groin as he starts making needy, frustrated little noises.

_It is an act only,_ Duncan reminds himself. _This is a lad well versed in plying middle-aged men with his body. This is not honest desire._ He repeats this to himself until he can extract some measure of higher thought from the howling neediness of his body.

“I said ask for what you _want_ ,” Duncan clarifies. His voice is rough as gravel. “Not what you’re willing to trade for it.”

Kyrien stills, then leans back just far enough to fix Duncan with a glare so venomous he's faintly surprised he doesn't drop dead on the spot.

“Despite the wild fantasies Ser Algar likes to entertain,” he says frostily, “I hardly think I’m going to be able to fuck my way into the Grey Wardens.

Duncan raises an eyebrow. “And I’m to believe you took it into your head to slip into the bed of a strange man twice your age purely for _sport?_ ”

“Yes,” Kyrien smirks. “And if you can’t figure out why, then I’m afraid I can’t help you; I’m not the type to pay compliments to a man who has so thoroughly insulted me.”

“My apologies."

“Mmmn,” Kyrien shifts his hips in a slow grind and drapes himself across Duncan’s chest, pressing intimately close. Duncan presses him closer purely by reflex. “I suppose I accept.”

“Very generous of you,” Duncan says unsteadily. “Now if you could just — ”

“Ride your cock until we both collapse in exhaustion? Don’t mind if I do. There’s a little flask in that front pouch there that I think you’ll find _very_ helpful”

Duncan groans into Kyrien’s hair and squeezes his hips tight, stilling him if only for the moment. “You should not tempt me so,” he rasps, feeling the final dregs of his better judgment drain away. He presses his nose into the soft hair at the side of Kyrien’s head and feels the lad shiver as his breath caresses his ear. “I am but a man, made of flesh.”

Kyrien’s, inhales sharply, sensing his victory. His hips rock sinfully in Duncan’s lap and he arcs his body against him, nibbling a little before murmuring in his ear “I’m rather counting on it.”

Duncan groans. Void take him, but he is so tired of fighting. He grinds up against Kyrien, giving up on trying to keep him still and using his grip to pull him into a shuddery-sweet, rocking rhythm. Kyrien sighs in relief and melts against him. His legs, bare on either side of Duncan’s thighs, squeeze tight as he moves eagerly with Duncan’s grip, shifting so that he can rub his cock teasingly against Duncan’s through the thick cloth of his pants. Duncan presses his face into Kyrien’s neck and groans; he’s not wearing smalls. The rough rasp of Duncan’s pants can’t feel comfortable on his bare cock but Kyrien grinds against him with all manner of pleasure noises spilling from his throat.

Duncan buries a hand in his hair and tugs him into a kiss, licking those sweet, lovely little noises right out of his mouth. His free hand he slides down until he can slip it under the hem of the rucked-up mages robes and squeeze the ample flesh of one thigh. Kyrien moans and spreads his legs wide, pressing impossibly closer and demanding more touch. Duncan slides his hand up far enough to grab a thick handful of the lad’s ass, but his other arm he keeps hooked around the small of Kyrien’s back, pulling him close and enjoying the feel of that hard little cock grinding against his belly.

“Duncan,” Kyrien moans, writhing in Duncan’s grip, clutching him tight. “Duncan _please_.”

“Please what, sweetling?” Duncan murmurs, ghosting a hand over the noticeable tent Kyrien is pitching in his robes.

“Fucking.” Kyrien growls, twisting his fingers in Duncan’s hair and yanking demandingly at him. “Suck me, fuck me, _anything,_ Maker’s Mercy.”

He _is_ in a state, face flushed and eyes glazed. Effective as his seduction was, he’s whipped himself into just as much a frenzy as he has Duncan, in addition with having to contend with all the tortured impatience of youth.

“Wicked, _wicked_ boy,” Duncan growls, pressing biting kisses into Kyrien’s neck. “Forgot your blade had two edges, did you?”

“Underestimated the rebound,” he admits with a breathless laugh. “Now can you get _on_ with it.

He's so lovely, warm and needy in Duncan's arms, and Duncan knows he's not going to be able to resist taking a little time with him. He hooks an arm across Kyrien’s small body and twists to drop him sprawling on the mattress, claiming the little brat’s mouth in harsh, biting kisses that send desperate moans echoing up to the ceiling. Smooth legs wrap tight around Duncan’s waist and clever little hands tug and stroke at his hair.

He’s deliciously soft all over, with the fullness of a body confined to indoor study and fed with regular meals. Duncan loves it, loves the feel of his fingers sinking into ample flesh and the press of a little belly against him, every bit of him eager and writhing. Everything about him feels fresh and smooth, bright with an energy Duncan can barely convince himself exists in the world anymore. 

Some part of him is convinced that he will snuff it out, if he’s not careful, like his weariness is a physical thing. It’s just that Kyrien feels so tiny, elf-small without that whipcord fighting strength Duncan has encountered in his few elven lovers. Duncan feels like a clumsy, hulking brute in a way he never has in the shadows with a dagger in his hand, and he he can’t shake the feeling that a wrong move will do damage. But Kyrien hums encouragingly as Duncan settles on him, curling his arms around Duncans shoulders and pressing sharp little biting kisses along Duncan’s neck.

“Not where they show,” Duncan chides gently. He’s surprised at the roughness of his voice. “I need to play diplomat tomorrow.”

“Sounds like a nightmare,” Kyrien agrees, smiling and shoving the collar of Duncan’s shirt aside and to move to his collarbone after one last parting nip. Duncan twists his fingers into the inky black strands of Kyrien’s hair and tugs just a little, enough to make him moan enticingly and grind up against Duncan’s stomach. He’s reassuringly hard, though at his age that’s probably not so reliable and indication of desire as Duncan might wish. He can’t shake the disquieting thought that this display of desire, convincing as it seems, may be nothing more than theatrics in service to some agenda

But now the little mage is tugging insistently at the hem of Duncan’s shirt, making a small noise of frustration when Duncan is slow to react and a more satisfied one when he succeeds in throwing the offending garment to the floor. He looks and touches Duncan’s bare chest with such open greed that Duncan lets his mind be set at ease, if only for a little while.

Duncan braces himself on his elbows and lets Kyrien look his fill, running his fingers through the dark, smooth strands of his hair and doing some looking of his own. He has never seen any particular appeal in mages robes, shapeless and billowy as they are, and so often dyed in eye-searing color combinations. But the sight of Kyrien now with his new robes crumpled and hiked up to reveal his lovely bare legs, pooled around his thighs like a lady’s skirts, makes him feel briefly lightheaded as all his blood rushes south.

Kyrien can tell, too, if that half-lidded look of lazy satisfaction is any indication.

“I think,” he murmurs, digging around in the pouch at the waist of his robes, “that you should fuck me now.”

“Do you, now,” Duncan rumbles, sitting up so he can grasp Kyrien by the bare thighs and drag him across the bed and halfway onto his lap, making the little mage’s robes hike up even farther, up around his chest. His cock is dark red and leaking onto his softly rounded belly. A high pitched little giggle tumbles out of his lips and his face flushes bright pink as he grinds suggestively into Duncan’s lap, clearly pleased by the manhandling.

“Yes, yes I definitely do,” he says breathlessly as holds up a little glass phial that catches in the firelight.

Duncan takes it from him. It’s wide mouthed and stoppered and holding a clear, viscous liquid. When he opens it and pours a little on his fingers he notes that the oil is of surprisingly good quality, pleasantly but not overpoweringly scented. Not something Duncan would think a young Circle apprentice would easily acquire, with it’s packed dormitories and hawk-eyed chantry sisters.

“Why, Mage Surana,” Duncan drawls with a wry twist of his mouth, using his oiled hand to stroke Kyrian’s cock. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you planned this.”

“Why — ” Kyrien’s breath catches as he bucks his hips into Duncan’s slick, tight grip. His eyes flutter half-mast. “Whyever would you have that impression, Warden-Commander?”

“Oh, just a feeling,” Duncan murmurs, watching the young man writhe in his lap. Kyrien’s cock is shiny-wet and red and makes a lovely sight pumping through his fist. He’s trembling all over, fingers twisting in the bedclothes, eyes just a dark sliver shining beneath his long lashes. He’s an absolute picture.

Duncan settles in and drinks in the sight of him, watching him twist and shudder with the pleasure Duncan gives him, at the pace Duncan sets. Kyrien does his very best to try to hurry Duncan along; he bucks into Duncan’s hand, grinds against his hard cock, and spills an endless litany of needy, gasping whines that hook deep into Duncan’s flesh. But Duncan will not be hurried. He sets his own pleasure aside and watches Kyrien unravel with unfettered avarice.

“Please,” Kyrien begs at last. “Please Duncan, please?”

“Pretty boy,” Duncan croons. “Bet that feels good, all oiled up properly.”

“Yes,” he sobs, making choked, boken little noises as Duncan takes his time lavishing attention on all his sensitive spots.

“Do you want me to make you spend like this?” Duncan’s voice is deep and rough in his own ears. “Or can I fuck you?”

“Fuck me,” Kyrien moans, grinding down into Duncan’s lap. “Fuck me, Duncan _please_.”

“Yeah.” Despite all his begging, he whines a little protest when Duncan releases him, and he pats the little mage reassuringly on the thigh. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll fuck you. Get these robes off first, though.”

In the work of a moment, Duncan’s pants are crumpled up on the ground with Kyrien’s mage robes, and the mage himself is stretched out in a languid sprawl, licking his lips with irresistible invitation. Duncan runs a hand over all that sweet, smooth skin, the curve of his hip, the softness of his belly. Kyrien arches into his touch like a cat and tugs at his shoulder, pulling him down for some wet, filthy kisses until Duncan feels dizzy.

“How do you want it,” Duncan asks, pulling away only far enough so that his lips barely brush Kyrien’s. Kyrien reaches up to press a little peck to them before wiggling onto his stomach, tipping up his hips and arching his back showily. Duncan reaches up the bed and tucks a pillow under his hips. Kyrien sighs appreciatively and rocks into it a few times, settling into place with his ass angled just right.

“Wanton,” Duncan rasps, stroking his clean hand over the boy’s ass and gripping a generous handful. Kyrien moans and presses back into the touch. “Lovely, desperate little thing.”

He’s not the only desperate thing in this room. If steady hands hadn’t been the base of his survival over a lifetime, Duncan is sure he would have spilled the little bottle all over the bedding with his fumbling. As it is, Duncan can barely stand to pause long enough slick his fingers with fresh oil before he sinks one into Kyrien’s eager body, and then a second almost immediately after. He’s so much smaller than Duncan that it seems impossible that he’d be able to take Duncan’s thick, callused fingers so easily, but he opens up with a lovely, pleasure-drunk moan and presses impatiently back against his hand.

“Don’t bother, I’m fine,” Kyrien moans. “Please, please, just fuck me.”

“Hush,” Duncan sooths, running a hand over the tense arch of Kyrien’s back. “Let me take my time with you.”

Kyrien groans, frustrated and desperate, and Duncan chuckles. He strokes steadily inside him, searching for a particular spot and rubbing it with merciless focus once he finds it.

“ _Oh_ ,” Kyrien gasps, bucking back against his and. “Oh you fuck. You absolute fucker. I can’t believe you’re _laughing_ at me — Mmmph, _please.”_

“You look so good like this,” Duncan says roughly. He’s teasing himself every bit as much as Kyrien with the pace he’s setting, and it’s wicked of him to use the advantage of age to endure it but this little mage whipped up into a frenzy of writhing and begging is not something Duncan can bring himself to rush past, for all that he’s nearly shaking with need at the thought of the grasping heat around his fingers wrapped snugly around his cock.

Duncan holds out as long as his rapidly fraying willpower allows, and then a few more minutes after that. He very much doubts that he’ll have such a gorgeous young thing bully their way into his bed any time soon, if ever, and he intends to take this opportunity to enjoy himself thoroughly.

“Maker take you, Duncan. Will you fuck me before I die of old age _please_.”

“Such melodrama,” Duncan laughs, but his blood is pounding in his ears and his cock is hard enough to break rocks, and perhaps now is a good time to let enough be enough.

Kyrien’s breath catches when Duncan gently slides his fingers out and he arches his back, thrumming with anticipation when Duncan slides one hand to grip his hip and lines up his slick cock with the other. It looks like such an impossible fit when Duncan first presses his leaking cockhead to that tiny little hole, but Kyrien opens for him with dizzying ease, taking Duncan all the way to the hilt with no sign of anything other than the deepest pleasure.

Kyrien moves right away to fuck himself back on to Duncan’s cock, but Duncan grips him tight, digging his fingers deep into Kyrien’s hips and holding him tight while he grits his teeth and grasps at the threads of his control. He really does think that he’s much too old to fear embarrassing himself so thoroughly, but Warden virility does have its downsides. And it really has been far, far too long.

An impatient growl rises up from beneath him, and Kyrien strains against his grip. Duncan hushes him and brushes inky black strands from Kyrien’s neck, leaning over to kiss the damp, flushed skin. “Give me a moment, sweetling. You feel so good.”

Nothing if not contrary, Kyrien wiggles his hips back against Duncan’s in a very unhelpful manner. Duncan nips him warningly, bracing himself on one forearm. All it really does is make his partner moan and press back harder, but Duncan grits his teeth and rides it out till he’s past the point of danger.

“Mmmn, stop hovering, Duncan,” Kyrien whines. “I want to feel you.”

Duncan snorts, nuzzling into the soft hair behind Kyrien’s ear. He shivers. “I will crush you flat, sweetheart”

“You wont,” Kyrien moans. “You wont, I promise. Just… hold me down, please?”

Duncan is cautious about it, peppering Kyrien’s neck and shoulders with little kisses as he settles his weight a little, watching closely for any sign of discomfort or protest. When he’s certain he’s not crushing the little mage, he slides his hands up Kyrien’s arms to his wrists, pressing them gently into the mattress.

Kyrien is shamelessly vocal in his passion, gasping out desperate, panting little moans as he writhes in the grip of Duncan’s gently implacable confinement. Duncan can’t help but fuck him now, with gentle expansive rolls of his hips that use the full length of his cock to best advantage. Kyrien chokes out a series of shocked noises that make it sound as though all he has ever wanted his entire life is for Duncan to give him his cock and make him feel every inch of it.

“There you are, pretty boy. That’s just what you need, isn’t it?” Duncan murmurs in his ear. Kyrien moans his assent, but in truth this is everything Duncan needs, has needed and would not allow himself to have. There has been no time, he’s told himself sternly, for frivolities or indulgences. But Duncan is a weak man at heart, growing weaker by the day, and this is the most exquisite fuck in his recent memory, with Kyrien’s lovely responsive body buried under his and shamelessly delighting in its own pleasure.

Kyrien twists and pushes against the strength of his grip for the simple pleasure of feeling the resistance, and he shudders all over when Duncan set’s his teeth gently against the long edge of one ear.

“Is that all right?” He knows elves can be sensitive about their ears.

“Yes, Maker, _please_ ,” Kyrien moans, pressing back against the touch, shuddering all over as Duncan lavishes attention along the long ridge of one ear, then the other. Kyrien writhes like a cat under him, shifting his hips as Duncan fucks him until one thrust makes his back arch, his mouth falling open in a soundless scream.

“Ahh, did I get a good spot there?” Duncan rasps, bringing his pinned wrists in so Duncan can better cage him with his arms and keep him in place. Kyrien lets out a choking moan and nods. His shivering all over, breath coming out in these shuddering little whines, and when Duncan starts fucking him with brutal precision he slides into incoherent, messy babble, gripping Duncan’s hands tight and holding on for dear life.

“Oh, gods,” Kyrien sobs, after some time of this treatment. He’s tense and shuddering, back arched and head braced against Duncan’s shoulder, leaving a long pale line that Duncan can press his lips against “I’m so close, Duncan. Please, I’m so close.”

“Are you?” Duncan growls into his damp skin, delighted. He squeezes the boy tightly and picks up the pace of his steady strokes into Kyrien’s shuddering body. “You’ve been so good to me already, and you’re going to let my cock make you come too?”

“Yes,” he chokes. “ _Yes_ , Duncan, I can’t help it.”

“Better make it quick,” Duncan groans, pressing kisses on Kyrien’s ears, his neck, his temple. “I’m about to spill all in this lovely body of yours. I can’t help it, the way you’re squeezing me…”

All manner of filthy things tumble off Duncan’s tongue with no input or oversight from his mind. He fucks brutally into Kyrien, chasing down their pleasure until the little body underneath him tenses all over, shudders, and cries out his release into the bedding.

There’s no holding back after that, not with Kyrien clenching so hotly around his cock, sobbing his pleasure. It’s only a bare handful of moments until he grips tight and spills into that lovely wet heat with a low roar.  


When he collapses, Duncan makes sure to do so to one side, rolling heavily onto his back and panting. He pays hardly any attention as Kyrien shifts, presses close, and arranges Duncan’s pleasure-heavy limbs to his own liking and plops himself right on Duncan’s broad chest. Duncan, muscles still twitching and satisfaction buzzing under his skin, pays hardly any attention except to place a broad palm on the small of Kyrien’s sweat-damp back.

It’s cozy, with the crackle of the fire throwing light over the grey stone walls, the dark silence of the tower seeming more safely isolated than unknowable and mysterious, Kyrien’s breath puffing lightly over his chest. His eyes are closed and he looks like he could be asleep, his face smooth and relaxed and incredibly young-looking. A surge of uncharacteristic protectiveness rises up and presses against his throat. He is _so young_ , and so desperate to leave everything he’s ever known. Duncan cannot say he blames him, but is tossing him in the middle of a monstrous, lifelong war really so much better than a safe tower with handsy Templars and disapproving Chantry sisters?

It wont just be Ostagar, if he survives, and Duncan has for weeks now been unable to shake the horrible certainty that Ostagar is going to be a disaster, one way or another. Joining the Gray Wardens is a life sentence, even assuming he gets through the joining, and the battle, and the rest of the Blight. Being a Warden is almost worse in peacetime; people forget so quickly, the ravages of a Blight.

Duncan sighs and trails his fingers through Kyrien’s inky hair. He blinks a few times and looks up at Duncan, a lovely smile contrasting sharply with the harsh challenge of the tattoo on his face. Those stark, bold lines are declaration if Duncan has ever seen one, and he traces sharp slashes of it with light fingertips. Young men who hope for a peaceful life do not adorn their faces so.

Kyrien stretches to kiss him, all lazy, hazy satisfaction, and Duncan slips his hand around the back of his neck and pulls him in tight. It’s far to late for doubt, Duncan tells himself. He understands his misgivings, and the importance of them, but its time to put them all aside. So the lad wants to leave the tower, to fight? So be it. Times are far too precarious to be turning down willing volunteers.

There are other regrets, baser ones, and Duncan puts those from his mind as well.

Their kisses trail off into a wave of warm sleepiness, the crackling fire and the afterglow soothing them to the very edge of sleep. Duncan fights it halfheartedly, enjoying the feel of a warm body pressed all along his side, the comfort of a soft bed, and the knowledge of safety, however temporary. The battle against sleep cannot be fought for long, though, and eventually Duncan claws himself to the surface of consciousness. He nudges Kyrien’s shoulder and gets a sleepy grumble in response.

“Hey. Kyrien. You’ll get in trouble if you stay here, lad.”

“M’not gonna stay here,” comes the murmuring sigh.

Duncan makes a skeptical noise.

“M’ _not_ ,” comes protests, sounding only slightly more forceful as eyelids flutter open for a bare moment before sinking shut once more.

“Of course not,” Duncan chuckles. “I can tell by the way you’ve fallen asleep on my shoulder.”

“M’not asleep,” Kyrien grumbles sleepily. He drags himself upright with a little huff and blinks at Duncan blearily. “Time izzit?”

“Just gone three, according to the chimes you certainly didn’t sleep through,” Duncan says, lips pressed tight on a smile. “Are you going to be all right getting back? Shall I escort you?”

Kyrien’s eyes snap wide. “No! I mean — ” he heaves a sigh and rubs muzzily at his eyes. “I mean, there’s really no need, Duncan. This late, the Templars mostly just stay on the lower levels and play dice. Even the tranquil are asleep, mostly. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” Duncan says dubiously. “If Algar — ”

“He wont bother me,” Kyrien cuts him off. “I wont even — I’ll make nice tomorrow, he wont be a problem.”

There certainly will not be a problem. Ser Algar will not get another chance to put his hands on this mage again. Duncan will make sure of that, if nothing else.

Kyrien seems to misinterpret Duncan’s expression, however. He puts a hand on his arm and meets earnest eyes with his. “It’s really not so bad as you think, Duncan. There wont be any trouble with him, I promise.”

_You said he was possessive._ Duncan swallows the impulse to argue. He wont convince the lad of anything, and it will all be academic by tomorrow anyway. “I can still walk you back. It would be no trouble.”

“It might be, if we’re seen,” Kyrien says with a raised eyebrow. “No one would _wonder,_ if they saw us together this late at night, but that is only because they would _know_. I’ll be fine Duncan, really.”

“Would it be bad for you? If we were seen?”

Kyrien shrugs one shoulder with practiced carelessness. “No worse than usual, but I’d rather avoid it.”

Duncan sighs. “If you’re certain.”

“I am.” He leans over and presses a quick, closed-lipped kiss to Duncan’s lips. “Farewell and good hunting Duncan, if I don’t see you tomorrow.”

“I don’t see why you wouldn’t,” Duncan says. “I will be departing after breakfast tomorrow.”

“Oh, well then maybe I’ll see you there then,” Kyrien says with a cheeky little grin. He drags himself from the bed and snatches up his robes, tugging them over his head. Easy to take off and put back on; yes, Duncan is indeed beginning to see the appeal of mages’ robes.

“Don’t forget your boots,” Duncan drawls.

Kyrien winks at him, scooping them up and heading to the door without bothering to put them on. When he puts his hand on the doorknob he hesitates a moment, twisting around to shoot Duncan a wistful parting smile.

“Ta, Duncan,” he murmurs. “Good luck on your travels.”

“Good night, lad,” Duncan says as he slips through the door. “Maker watch over your dreams.”

\---

To say that Duncan is displeased when he is awoken a mere handful of hours later is something of an understatement. It seems like minutes since he bade Kyrien good night and dropped off to a deep, restful slumber. Not free of dreams, never that, but those he did have were muted and faint, wicking away from memory immediately upon waking. That small mercy is not enough to improve Duncan’s mood as he enters Irving’s study.

“I suppose you have a very pressing reason to rouse me at six of the clock in a morning hours before I’ll be on the road,” Duncan grumbles, then grimaces. He has campaigned hard for the current relative warmth in the relations between the Wardens and the Circle, and it would not do to jeopardize that with pettiness. “I beg your pardon, First Enchanter, I—”

“Think nothing of it, nothing at all.” Irving waves him off distractedly. He looks nearly as exhausted as Duncan feels. “I hope you had no trouble sleeping? I’ve found that Kinloch Hold can be troubling to those who are not used to it’s… unique atmosphere.”

“No worse than usual,” Duncan says carefully, tamping down a brief flash of paranoia. There was no reason for the enchanter to know what he’d gotten up to besides sleep last night. And in truth, his night’s rest was a good deal better than usual, and only somewhat shorter by recent standards.

“Good, good,” Irving mutters, turning back to a small device set on his desk. “As it happens, there is a reason why I roused you out of bed. I could use your help apprehending a blood mage.”

Duncan’s skin prickles. He can practically hear Kyrien’s voice from last night: _Have you ever seen someone use blood magic?_ Had he been thinking of using it himself? Surely he would not take such a risk, watched as he was by the Templars.

_I’m sure he was just trying to survive_ , he’d said. Duncan wishes he could be more certain

“I have had very few dealings with blood mages,” He tells Irving slowly. “I will help, of course but… Pardon, but is this not what your templars are for?”

“Ha! “My” templars,” Irving scoffs bitter lines settling into the creases of his face before he checks himself, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What I mean to say is that the templars are often overzealous, and the Knight-Commander encourages this quality in his men. That is not a criticism, you understand; when faced with demons and malificarum, hesitation can get good men killed. But the malificar in question has not yet completed his apprenticeship, and has duped a couple of misguided youngsters into helping him. I would prefer a more… temperate influence, to balance Greagoir’s vehemence.”

Duncan mind flashes to the late night meeting outside his door, to finding Kyrien wandering the corridors late at night and his insistence on making his way back through them alone. The significance of his manner, of certain slips of the tongue and the angle of particular lines of questioning click ominously into place, and Duncan curses himself for a fool.

“Of course I will help in any way that I can,” he assures Irving, tucking the fraying edges of his growing dread behind a smooth mask. He’s suddenly very grateful to have been roused in the early hours of the morning, though he suspects the First Enchanter may have cause to regret that impulse.

Irving checks the device on his desk and shakes his head despairingly. “I had so much hope…”

“First Enchanter?”

“The young Mage Surana is unfortunately one of the ones caught up in this whole business.” Irving explains, confirming Duncan’s guess. “He’s always been restless, combative, but with so much potential! I had hoped some time out in the world… but of course, that wont do now. I am sorry, Duncan. I know you are fond of the lad.”

Duncan keeps his face carefully blank. “I… pardon?”

“Oh, please,” Irving retorts, a glimmer of amusement breaking through. “This is my tower. It always amuses me when people are so surprised that I know what happens in it.”

Panick starts to build in Duncan’s chest, but is cut through with a cold snap of anger. Irving is posturing, surely. His tired face is friendly and opaque. If he knew, if he _knows_ , and yet can be so calm —

_I had him in my bed for one night._ Duncan thinks with a nauseating combination of dread and rage. _That templar, and almost certainly others, have had him over and over. How old was he, the first time? Do you know, Irving? Did you know and let it happen? Did you let the rot seep into the corners of your precious tower in the name of peace, and security? Did you sacrifice that child on the altar, all for the thinnest illusion of safety? If him, then how many others? How many others have you failed?_

He takes a breath and reins himself in with enormous effort, locking his accusations firmly behind his lips. He is speculating; more likely is that Irving is a doddering old fool who wants to be seen as cleverer than he truthfully is. Even more, Duncan is being a hypocrite. He let the lad into his bed, after all.

When he can trust is voice, he says “We spoke a bit as he was escorting me to my room. He’s a survivor. And very clever.”

Irving’s face falls, and he swipes a hand over his mouth and down his beard. “Too clever by half,” he murmurs tiredly. “I had hoped… He was such an unruly child, but he has settled down considerably the last few years. Insolent, I’m sure you noticed, but I thought some time in the army might give him something constructive to focus all that energy on, as well as teach him something about the realities of the outside world. Impossible now, of course; I cannot let a flight risk leave the tower. A pity.”

“Flight risk?”

“In the past day, he has lied, manipulated, and stolen in order to aid the escape of a maleficar and most likely engineer his own. Greagoir would string me up by my ankles if I even considered letting such a mage leave the tower. As it is, the lad is very fortunate he has passed the harrowing.”

“He’s young,” Duncan counters. “Young people make foolish mistakes, but I see a good deal of potential in him.”

“Ah Duncan, you are not the first one to say so, about this lad and many others like him. When you get to be my age, you see too much of people squandering the considerable talents the Maker has bestowed on them to put very much stock in potential.”

Duncan bristles at Irving’s tone. The First Enchanter is perhaps a decade older than himself, give or take a few years, and his condescending, grandfatherly tone grates. Duncan will never reach Irving’s “advanced age”, and hardly believes that a few extra years in this cloistered bubble would create so large a gap in experience as he pretends. But the fact is that Irving cannot stop Duncan from taking Kyrien from this tower, and has in fact done him a great favor in summoning him so that he can prevent any "vehemence" on the part of the templars before he can invoke the Right of Conscription.

He’s about to ask when they can get on with things when Irving takes one last look at the device at is desk. “Ah!” he exclaims, “They are just leaving the basement now. Let us see what our boys are up to; Greagoir is meeting us at the door.”

\---

“This looks bad.”

Kyrien pastes on a bored mask through most of the confrontation, but Duncan can tell he’s frightened. His eyes flick worriedly to his friend, and to the Templars who have taken up posts around the perimeter of the room. Curious onlookers are poking their heads in through the doorways, only to be gently shooed away. When Irving chides him for not informing him of the plan, Kyrien’s mouth twists contemptuously.

“Why, so I could watch you make another one of my friends Tranquil?” he scoffs. “Thanks, but no.”

Irving’s stern countenance doesn’t falter, but his eyes grow a little gentler. “Child, I know Solona Amell’s decision was very upsetting to you — ”

“Child?” Kyrien snaps, eyes flashing dangerously. “ _She_ was a child. She was scared and grieving, and you just let her kill herself. No, worse; you _helped_.”

“She was no more a child than you are now,” Irving chides, his voice remaining gently but his expression growing stormy. “And she is not dead; you can see her any time you like.”

“That _thing_ is not my friend!” Kyrien shouts, fists clenched tight at his side. Duncan feels an odd pressure in his ears, and Kyrien’s voice takes on an odd, faintly echoing quality. “You killed my friend, and you were going to kill the last one I have, and I wasn’t going to let you. Jowan’s right, you don’t give a fuck about any of us, and if you thought for one moment I would _ever_ trust you, then you’re even more senile than I thought you were.”

All the light in the room, all the torches and candles, seem to grow dimmer and smaller with each acid word. The air is choked thickly with anger and cloying despair. Everything, everyone, all the gathered templars and even the Knight-Commander himself seem to shrink under the dark blanket of the young mage’s anger. The apprentice, Jowan, looks as though he is about to flee for a moment before he casts a nervous look to his frightened lady-love, at which point he sets his jaw firmly and steps up to his friend’s side.

“Enough!” Greagoir shouts, his booming voice reverberating around the room. He raises on hand and, at his signal, a Templar casts a Holy Smite at the young mages’ feet. Duncan’s ears pop as he’s lightly buffeted by the slight recoil of interrupted magic. The oppressive pall of anger and darkness burns away like fog in sunlight. Kyrien staggers, reeling as if from a physical blow. Jowan looks even worse off, but manages to keep his feet. “Is this what qualifies as order among your mages Irving? Disgraceful. Someone get the girl out of here, I’ll deal with her— ”

“No!” Jowan shouts, snapping immediately to attention. He’s still unsteady on his feet, but he has a look of dangerous determination in his eyes. “I won’t let you touch her!”

Duncan knows what’s about to happen a split second before Jowan pulls the little knife from the belt of his robes. He has time only to brace himself and catch a glimpse of Kyrien’s wide, startled eyes before the knife flashes in the light, striking viciously down, and the whole world goes red and bright.

Duncan comes to as healers and Chantry sisters burst into the room. Most of the templars are still on the ground, clutching their heads and blinking with bleary eyes. To Duncan’s side, Irving groans and pulls himself to his feet. “Are you all right?” he asks. “Where’s Greagoir?”

Greagoir is still on the floor, stunned and looking distantly at the spot where Apprentice Jowan had been standing. “I knew it,” he whispers. “Blood magic. But to overcome so many… I never thought him capable of such power.”

“That unbelievable fucking idiot. I can’t believe he just did that,” Kyrien says across the room, clutching his head and glaring at the same empty place as Greagoir. Unlike the Knight-Commander, he seems hardly shaken at all, if a little unsteady on his feet. He was frightfully close to the blast radius. Had Jowan held back from hitting his friend quite so hard, or had he lacked even that control over the terrible power he had summoned?

All around them templars are beginning to climb to their feet, and Duncan follows suit. He reaches down to give Greagoir a hand. “None of us expected this,” Irving is saying shakily. “Are you all right, Greagoir?”

“As good as can be expected, given the circumstances! We are very fortunate indeed that the malificar was not well practiced in his art. If you had let me act sooner, this would not have happened.”

“He was defending himself,” Kyrien snaps. “He didn’t want to hurt anyone, but he didn’t want to be turned into a mindless doll either.”

Greagoir rounds on him, and for a moment Duncan is very certain that he will have to intervene with force, but Irving stops him with a hand on his shoulder. Greagor turnshis head sharply, his face twisted with fury and badly shaken. A good thing for him that gauntlets do such a fine job of steadying trembling hands. Irving sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Jowan destroyed his phylactery,” he says, opting to ignore Kyrien’s outburst entirely. “Without it, he will be hard to locate.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Greagoir growls. “Where’s the girl?”

The girl is huddled, shaking like a leaf, in the corner. Kyrien shoots her a contemptuous look as she stammers her regrets, and doesn’t quite drop it entirely when he denies Irving and Greagoir’s accusations of theft. Irving believes him, which Duncan finds interesting in the face of the man’s earlier assertions of the boy being a thief. Greagoir seems far more interested in the escape of the blood mage, which Duncan supposes he can understand given the circumstances.

“All our prevention measures for naught, because of some jumped-up elven stripling — ”

“Greagoir,” Irving says warningly.

“Irving I’ve told you time and time again that you give the apprentices too much leeway, that they get rebellious if you coddle them so much when they’re young, and look what’s happened! And of _course_ this one is an elf — ”

Kyrien gets a glint of something dangerous in his eye as he crosses his arms and squares up with the Knight-Commander. “What the fuck does my being an elf have to do with anything?”

“Knight commender if I may,” Duncan interrupts, stepping between Greagoir and Kyrien. No need to allow things to escalate further. “I am not only looking for mages to join the King’s army, I am also recruiting for the Grey Wardens. Irving spoke highly of this mage and I would like for him to join the Warden ranks.”

Not that he has a choice in the matter, but Duncan never likes to throw his weight around any more than he has to. He can practically feel Kyrien’s eyes drilling into the back of his head.

“Duncan,” Irving says to Duncan’s side, shaking his head. “This mage has assisted a maleficar and shown an extreme lack of regard for the Circle’s rules.”

“He is a danger,” Greagoir adds fiercely. “To all of us.”

Irving looks disapproving, but Greagoir is livid, his face coloring with rage. Duncan looks him straight in the eye, keeping his stance relaxed and his arms down at his sides. He doesn’t think Greagoir will be fool enough to attack him over this, but his anger is only a thin shell over a roiling core of terror. Duncan has seen men do very stupid things out of fear, and he prays to the Maker that this will not turn into another one

He pitches his voice low, as if gentling a spooked horse, as he says “It is a rare person who risks all for a friend in need. I stand by my decision, I will recruit this mage.”

Duncan hears a startled catch of breath behind him, but Duncan keeps his eyes firmly on the biggest threat. Greagoir’s eyes have gone a little wild around the edges

“No!” The Knight-Comander growls. “I refuse to let this go unpunished!”

“If the Grey Wardens will have me, I will gladly go.” Kyrien pipes up. Duncan doesn’t dare risk shifting his focus even a moment to tell him to keep quiet, but he dearly wishes for the lad to not draw any more attention to himself just now.

“Greagoir,” Duncan soothes. “Mages are needed. This mage is needed. Worse things plague this world than blood mages— you know that.”

Greagoir doesn’t look as though he does know that, actually, but he’s not a stupid man. He knows he can’t argue with the Right of Conscription, especially when the King’s own armies are at this very moment gathering to battle darkspawn. Duncan wishes he didn’t have to strong-arm the Knight-Commander into this; the Circle’s inability to touch Warden mages has been a source of great strain for as long as both factions have existed, and he would have preferred not to add to it. Nothing for it now.

Duncan reads Greagoir’s angry capitulation in his face and backs off, stepping back to grip a protective hand over Kyrien’s shoulder. “I take this young mage under my wing and bear all responsibility for his actions,” he declares. He can feel Kyrien puff up with pride under his touch, but this time he stays mercifully quiet

Greagoir shakes his head. “A blood mage escapes, and his accomplice is not only unpunished, but is rewarded by becoming a Grey Warden. Are our rules nothing? Have we lost all authority over our mages? This does not bode well, Irving.”

“Enough,” Irving says, resigned. “We have no more say in this matter.”

Duncan would argue against the notion that becoming a Grey Warden, assuming one survived the Joining, would be any sort of reward at all, but it’s clear he is the only one in the room who holds that opinion, especially as Kyrien asks, in a soft, hope filled voice, “Am I to leave the circle forever?”

“The Circle never forgets its apprentices,” Irving says. It sounds like a warning. “But the Grey Wardens shall be your family now.”

Kyrien grins. “Perhaps the Grey Wardens will appreciate my talent more.”

Duncan sighs inwardly, anticipating a long road ahead. “You will have ample opportunity to hone your new skills, I assure you,” he says, not without irony. “Come, your new life awaits.”


	2. Epilogue

\---

It takes longer than Duncan would have liked to leave the tower, what with preparing Kyrien to travel for the first time since he was a small child, and gathering provisions under the baleful eye of the Circle leadership. Duncan is both certain that he has once again outstayed his welcome and well aware of the peculiar resistance against taking a mage — or, perhaps, _this_ mage — from the tower.

“Whatever you bring you must carry,” Duncan tells Kyrien, not unkindly, as he stares furiously at the small assortment of his possessions arranged on his bed. Kyrien sighs, nods, and picks up only a silver pendent to join the robes, staff, and odd wooden ring he’s already wearing. He gives the covers of the books one last, lingering stroke before he turns sharply away and heads down the hallway without a word.

Duncan walks silently beside him as they trace their way through the winding halls of Kinloch Hold, still eerily shadowed even coming up on midday. Whispers and stares follow them as they pass, but Kyrien keeps his head up, acknowleging nothing and no one until they reach the doors and he smirks insolently at the guards as they pass.

The wide mouthed cavern that serves as the tower’s dock is shadowed, but the sunlight that shimmers off the lake seems dazzling. Kyrien rushes to the mouth of the cave and clambers up a slippery stone jutting into the water, completely ignoring the impatient ferryman waiting to take them across.

Duncan gives the man an apologetic look and pulls himself to join Kyrien on the ledge. He seems surprisingly steady on his feet for one who must be unused to such athletics, but it wouldn’t do for Duncan to let him slip and dash his head on a rock.

Kyrien obligingly steadies himself with a hand on Duncan’s arm using the other to shield his eyes as he takes in the view. He takes a deep breath. “Fresh air,” he whispers reverently.

Duncan thinks the air smells rather of fish and the improperly disposed waste of centuries of unspeakable alchemical experiments, but he supposes that he might feel a little reverent as well if he’d spent the majority of his life trapped indoors. “That long, hm?”

“Since I was eight,” he agrees. “And it’s been three years since I set so much as a toe outside. Some jackass who doesn’t understand how phylacteries work kept trying to escape and ruined it for the rest of us.

“Well, I imagine you’re about to get so much fresh air as to get thoroughly sick of it,” Duncan says.

“I’m pretty sure that’s impossible,” Kyrien laughs

“We’ll see.”

The journey to Ostagar has to be done on foot. Duncan had rode into Fereldan, of course, but had sold his horse for a fraction of what she was worth to a fleeing family of eight, who had been spooked by a darkspawn attack on a neighbor and had decided to join family in Starkhaven rather than roll the dice that things wouldn’t get worse. Duncan had heartily approved, and at any rate horses were not much use against darkspawn, and could be more danger than aid if spooked. Besides, he hadn’t liked the odds of her being stolen from under him regardless as things got worse and people grew more desperate.

Duncan has a little cause to regret that now. Kyrien is unlikely to know how to ride, but she had been so docile a creature that it hardly would have mattered and the lad is certainly in no condition for a hard march through hostile territory, with a battle at to cap it off. He doesn’t complain at all, to his credit, but he wilts quickly as the afternoon drags on. The pack Duncan gave him, as small and light as he could reasonably make it, is obviously beginning to weigh him down and the staff is certainly not helping.

“There’s a place about an hour or two ahead. We’ll make camp there, get an early start in the morning.”

Kyrien scowls thunderously. “I could walk longer than this when I was _seven_.”

“You were smaller then,” Duncan soothes. “Granted, not very _much_ smaller, but — ” Duncan breaks off into a laugh at Kyrien’s growl of outrage. “It will get easier. Be patient with your body, there’s no sense pushing too hard and delaying further.”

Kyrien grumbles but doesn’t put up any more of a fight. It strikes Duncan that he has no idea what the lad’s life was like, before the circle. Does he have any family? No, he said he was an orphan. How did his parents die? Did he grow up in an alienage? Duncan had assumed so, but he seems remarkably unfazed at the idea of sleeping outdoors, so perhaps not. Whatever the case, now is clearly not the time to drill the lad on his history. They make most of the journey to camp in near silence.

Once there, Kyrien begins to set wards around them without prompting, though it’s obvious in the drag of his limbs that he’s exhausted. “Walking doesn’t drain mana,” he says shortly when Duncan tries to gently suggest that he rest a a little while, so Duncan leaves him to it and goes to gather firewood and pitch their single tent. He does make a mental note to watch out for Kyrien overextending himself in the future; young men are not well known for respecting their limits, and Duncan should know.

He was also surprisingly competent at setting up the campfire, slow but avoiding the common mistakes Duncan had come to expect from novices. Particularly mages, who always seemed to think they could simply rely on a quick spell rather than consider such worldly matters as tinder or the effects of burning green wood.

Kyrien grins impishly when Duncan blinks in surprise at the well stacked- cheerfully crackling fire. “Some things you really don’t forget.”

Duncan settles himself heavily in front of the fire, across from Kyrien, passing the hard biscuit and jerky that would make the night’s journey; Kyrien eyed it dubiously, but ate without complaint. “Did you spend many nights out-of-doors before the circle?”

“Before the circle, I hardly ever stayed anywhere with solid walls. I spent the first two years at the tower feeling like I was suffocating.” He takes a deep breath, apparently savoring the fresh, open air once more. There’s a chill to it tonight; a warning of the coming winter.

They eat in relative silence, fire crackling merrily between them. Duncan cannot sense darkspawn anywhere near their camp; the Archdemon is consolidating its forces. And now the welcome addition of Kyrien’s wards will warn them of human and animal encroachment.

“You should rest,” Duncan tells him after a while. “I’ll be up for hours yet. I’ll wake you when it’s your turn to stand watch.”

Kyrien sends him a wicked look. “Perhaps you should join me.”

Duncan sighs inwardly, shaking his head. “No, lad.”

“Come on,” he coaxes, sidling over to Duncan’s side of the fire. “I’m not _that_ tired.”

“I did not imagine for a moment,” Duncan says wryly, catching Kyrien’s hand before he can rest it on Duncan’s knee. “Surana— ”

“ _Surana?_ ”

“You are to be a Grey Warden, pending the Joining, under my command,” Duncan says, pushing past Kyrien’s outraged protest. “It would be highly inappropriate for me to indulge in such… activities, with you. Frankly, they were highly inappropriate to begin with.”

“Oh, I see.” Kyrien snatches his hand away, eyes blazing. “Regretting your pity fuck, are you? Decided you don’t want to keep around damaged goods.”

“Surana — ” the lad makes a disgusted noise. “ _Kyrien_. Please. I very much enjoyed our time together, please never think otherwise, but as your commander — ”

“You are _not_ my commander,” Kyrien says fiercely. “Not yet anyway. And you know perfectly well that I could die during the Joining.”

Duncan freezes. “How could you possibly…?”

Kyrien snorts derisively. “Do you know how many bloody books are in the Circle tower? It’s about the only thing that made being trapped there bearable, and there are lots of things in them that a lot of other people wouldn’t want getting out.”

“What,” Duncan says slowly, “Do your books say about the Joining.”

Kyrien’s expression goes a little sullen. “Only that it involves blood magic, and it can be deadly. There weren’t any details, really, but I know that much. It could be I only have two more weeks to live.”

Duncan’s mind floods, vividly, with the image of Kyrien, pretty and dark-haired and flinty-eyed, choking to death on a mouthful of blood that Duncan gave him with his own hand, and covers his face. “…I…”

A hand on his cheek, a warm weight in his lap. Kyrien pulls his hand from his face and kisses the palm of it. “It’s two weeks until Ostagar,” he murmurs. “Maybe a little more if I make as poor a showing as I did today. And if I survive the joining I might just die in battle; it’s not like I know anything about being a soldier. I don’t want to waste this time on… on _propriety._ If you just don’t want me that’s one thing but…”

Duncan is to old to be swayed by a pretty face, but he can feel his own death breathing down his neck, has done for months now. He finds he is no more interested in wasting time than this little mage who’s settled himself right in Duncan’s space as though he belongs there.

“Brat,” he murmurs into Kyrien’s hair, pulling him close. Kyrien, sensing victory once more, makes a pleased little noise and snuggles close. “Has anyone told you what a terrible brat you are?”

“Why” Kyrien says, pressing smiling lips to his neck. “You want to spank me?”

Duncan growls, and drags them both down next to the fire, and doesn’t waste one single more moment of the time they have left.


End file.
